Brazil’s IoT Advancements Lead to “Google of Fiscal Goods”

Earlier this year, Brazil’s economy was rocked with a tainted meat scandal. Investigators alleged 21 meat processing companies bribed government officials to approve the sale of tainted meat, and went so far as to cover the smell of rotting meats with acid. With Brazil accounting for 20 percent of global beef exports and almost 40 percent of chicken exports, these allegations quickly rippled throughout the world, leaving shortages in several markets.

New requirements under Brazil’s NFe 4.0, however, could help to lessen the impacts, or at least better understand the scale, of such a scare. With its new regulations, Brazil is now tracking food and beverage, sanitary products and pharmaceuticals throughout the supply chain – from farm or origination to consumers.

Brazil is integrating fiscal electronic documents conveying these details with its Brazil-ID tracking initiative, allowing the government to track the movement of goods all the way to the consumer (via NFCe, or final consumer invoices). In pursuit of Brazil-ID, the country has installed almost 100 license plate readers using OCR technology (Optical Character Recognition), and Brazil’s main highways include radio frequency (RFID) tracking. With these technologies, the country can conduct cargo inspections in motion – starting as soon as a shipment leaves – and has already registered more than 6.2 million transit events.

The benefits of this traceability go beyond the ability to easily track down recalled, contaminated or illegal goods. It also minimizes the resources needed to conduct inspections and curbs the use of illegitimate transit services.

Next Up: Google of Fiscal Goods

The information collected via Brazil’s e-invoices (NFe), combined with this superior product tracking initiative, is powering a new concept that the Brazilian government has deemed “Google of Fiscal Goods.” Armed with product specifications and knowing exactly when and where products were delivered, Brazilian authorities can leverage this data to power a more accurate, searchable, product database.

SEFAZ Paraná, for example, recently launched a “Lower Price” application in the Apple Store and Google Play, allowing consumers to search for products nearby. Similar apps certainly exist throughout the world – but with the SEFAZ’s level of visibility into manufacturing and shipments, none can achieve the same level of accuracy.

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